Zodiac Girls: Star Child Read online

  “Erm… I’m starting to get an idea,” said Hermie with a grin.

  “Battye’s the name, astrology’s our game,” said Mum and she did a little skippy dance. “Oo-ee, I can’t resist a moment longer. I have to give you a hug.” She went over and embraced Hermie who didn’t seem to mind at all. “Welcome. Welcome here. Benjamin, have you given him the guided tour of the house?”

  Dad shook his head. “He only just got here a few seconds ago, Estella.”

  “You been offered some refreshment, Hermie?” asked Mum. “Would you like some lunch?”

  “I’ve had lunch thanks, but a drink would be great,” replied Hermie.

  Mum turned to me. “Thebe darling, be a sweetheart.”

  I put my package down even though I was dying to see what was in it. “What would you like?”

  “Oh, just fix a tray, bring everything,” said Mum, her eyes still fixed on Hermie. “And use the best cups. The bone china ones if you can find them. Thebe’s a dream child. A typical Virgo. She keeps this house running don’t you love?” I was about to say “yes”, but Mum continued over me. “She’s so organized and tidy. The rest of us would forget to eat if she didn’t do the weekly internet shop. Oh yes, that child is a marvel. Now run along, love, and fix a tray while your dad and I chat to Hermes here.”

  “Anything you don’t like Hermie?” I asked.

  “Not really… oh, except honey. Don’t bring me any honey, I… it has a strange effect on me…”

  “Like an allergy?” asked Mum. “I’m that way about wheat.”

  Hermie nodded. “Sort of. All us planets are… um, allergic to honey.”

  “Think I read that in one of my books, Hermie,” said Dad. “How does the allergy manifest?”

  “Um… er… let’s just say, best to be avoided.”

  “Sugar okay?” I asked.

  Hermie nodded and smiled. “Sugar’s fine.”

  I went into the kitchen but I felt miffed. According to the book, Hermie was my guardian, not theirs. The book said nothing about Zodiac parents! But then I couldn’t stay mad at them for long. Of course they were as excited as I was. Astrology was their whole life, their passion, and to be meeting one of the planets in the flesh was like meeting their pin-up or Hollywood hero. Plus they were useless in the kitchen. Like Mum may be ace at business but ask her to cook and she’s a disaster. Once she flavoured a simple jerk-chicken recipe with sugar instead of salt and another time, she put salt in the banana bread instead of sugar. Hopeless. Her mind is too busy wheeling and dealing. And Dad’s no better. He can’t even boil an egg. Pat used to help but then she discovered boys and working in the kitchen ruins her nails.

  So it’s up to me. I took over when I was ten. First thing I did was get a cleaner and housekeeper to come in a couple of days a week and cook up some meals for the freezer, and I do the weekly shop on the internet. I’m a whiz on the computer and I enjoy getting it sorted. And one of my favourite things is organizing the food cupboards so that everything can be easily found. It makes me feel happy when things are in the right places and things are done properly, like I had a little ritual for doing a tray: drinks first, food second, crockery and cutlery last. I poured a jug of pineapple orange drink for our guest, then I got the banana and coconut cake from the cake tin. I knew it was made with sugar not honey because I’d cut the recipe out of a magazine and given the recipe to the housekeeper myself. Last touch was to arrange plates, glasses and napkins on the tray, then I took them all in.

  Mum, Dad, Hermie and Pat were sitting on the sofas. Even Cosmo was in there, happily curled up on Hermie’s knee! Pat didn’t appear to be saying much. She was saying a lot with her body language though. There was an article about speaking without words in my last month’s Girl in the City magazine. I could tell by the way that Pat was sitting, with her skirt hitched high and her body leaning forward, that she was saying, “Hello, handsome. Let’s go for a ride on your motorbike.” Not that Mum or Dad noticed that their daughter was flirting so blatantly right in front of them. They only had eyes for Hermie. They were like two teens who had met their boy-band crush and were sitting on the edge of the sofa, hanging on his every word.

  “Ahem,” I coughed to let them know that I was back. Me. The Zodiac Girl. But no one noticed. As usual, I was the invisible member of our family. I put down the tray and went over to the desk where I’d left my package. As the others chatted away and quaffed down the juice and ate the cake, I unwrapped my parcel. Inside were two packets, one smaller than the other. I opened that one first. Inside was a small jewellery box and in that was a silver chain with a tiny silver lady holding a sheaf of wheat. I’d seen pendants like this before as Mum had loads manufactured to sell on the internet site, but this was exceptionally beautiful and delicate. I knew that the sheaf of wheat that the tiny lady was holding was supposed to symbolize wisdom. I glanced up to see if anyone had noticed that I was unwrapping my presents, but they were all still engrossed in their mutual admiration club so I opened the second parcel. Inside was the most divine mobile phone. It was navy with a sprinkling of glitter and at the top was a huge sapphire. It was stunning. I decided to butt into the conversation. “Hermie, thank you so much for my gorgeous presents.”

  “They’re yours as Zodiac Girl, Thebe. And the phone is so that you can get in touch with me and me with you.”

  At this point, I noticed Pat perk up even more. “Oh really. Can I have a look, Thebe?”

  Reluctantly I handed the phone over.

  “Oh my!” said Mum when she saw it. “It’s lovely. We do a range of phones for each sign but nothing as pretty as that. You must let me know your supplier. And it’s interesting that it’s blue with the sapphire. All the books seem to say something different about what the stone is for each sign. So much contradiction – like for Virgos, some books and websites say that navy is their colour and others say green or shades of yellow. And some say sapphire is their birthstone and others say agate. What do you think Hermie, sugar?”

  And they were off again. I had wanted to ask Hermie the same question that Mum had, but I had also wanted to say that I was glad my special phone had a sapphire on it as that was my favourite stone and blue was my favourite colour. But get a word in with this lot? No way. My special day? The beginning of my special month?

  It so wasn’t meant to be like this.

  Chapter Three

  Surprise

  “Are you Zodiac Girl because your dad’s a famous astrologer?” asked my best mate, Rachel, later that day as we sat on a bench and put our skates on at the local ice rink. I’d told her all about the visit and my Zodiac presents and she was well impressed.

  “No. It has nothing to do with Dad, or Mum for that matter,” I said as I glanced out at the skaters flying by on the rink in front of us, “although you’d hardly know it the way they took over the whole visit.”

  “Can I be a Zodiac Girl then?”

  “Maybe one day. There’s a different one each month somewhere on the planet and it depends on what’s coming up in your horoscope. Hermie said that everyone reacts differently and some girls make the most of their time while others choose to ignore it altogether. He said they had one girl who stomped on her Zodiac phone and broke it. I can’t imagine doing that as mine is so gorgeous. I’ll show you in school tomorrow.”

  “Have you used it yet?”

  “No. And I can only use it to get in touch with Hermie and the planet people and he will use it to get in touch with me. It’s like my hotline to them.”

  “What happens next then?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s going to be wonderful. Dad said that he thinks that girls get chosen to be Zodiac Girls when they are at a crossroads or turning point in their lives. I’m not expecting any big changes in my life any time soon, but who knows? Before he left, Hermie said that as Uranus features strongly in my chart that I should expect some kind of surprise. Uranus is the planet of the unexpected and sometimes when he’s around things can happen out of
the blue like a bolt of lightning, so really anything could happen.”

  “Wow. How exciting! I so wish I was a Zodiac Girl,” said Rachel as she stood up and made her way onto the ice.

  “So do I,” I called after her, “but I promise I’ll tell you all about it so you won’t be left out and maybe you can meet Hermie one day.”

  “That would be so cool,” said Rachel and she pushed off the edge and skated perfectly into the centre of the rink.

  I felt bad about not being able to share being Zodiac Girl with her as, apart from ice skating which is Rachel’s thing, we shared everything. Clothes, jewellery, music, magazines. Her star sign was Cancer so I resolved to get her a Cancerian pendant from Mum’s stock and also a mobile phone cover from a new range that Mum had designed. It wouldn’t be the same as having the real thing but would be close enough so that Rachel wouldn’t feel excluded.

  “Come on,” she called to me.

  I took a deep breath. I’d been dreading this moment. I was total rubbish at ice-skating. I’d tried it a couple of times when Rachel had first got into it and I had fallen flat on my back both times. The only reason I was giving it another shot was that Dad’s chosen celebrity for the month was Janet Johnson, the ice-skating champion, and she had invited my whole family to a party at the rink in four weeks time. As Mum and Dad and Pat are all confident skaters, I didn’t want to be seen as the family failure, nor did I want to let Dad down.

  I wobbled my way onto the rink and gingerly put my feet onto the ice. Immediately I felt my lower half slide away but caught myself just in time and held onto the barrier surrounding the rink.

  “Come on,” Rachel called again.

  “Mff,” I mumbled. I was finding it hard to breath. There were too many people on the rink and they were going so fast, whizzing past each other at a million miles an hour. What if I fall? I asked myself. One of them might skate by and slice my fingers off with the blades of their skates.

  Rachel skated towards me. “You okay?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No. I can’t do it. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

  She held out her arm to me. “Hold on to me, you’ll be fine. I won’t let you fall.”

  She was looking at me with such encouragement but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let go. I felt like the ice. Frozen. “I can’t Rachel, I’m sorry.”

  “I was the same first time,” she said. “It gets easier, it really does. Just try a little way, you can keep holding onto the side.”

  I still couldn’t do it. My legs wouldn’t move, I felt a huge knot in my stomach and was finding it hard to breathe.

  “Next time,” I wheezed. “I promise, I’ll do it next time.”

  Rachel’s such a great mate. She didn’t push it. She just squeezed my arm. “You’ll get there. You’ll see. It just takes time.”

  I staggered off the ice and back to the safety of a nearby bench where my breath slowed down to normal. I couldn’t get the skates off fast enough. I sat and watched Rachel and the others for a while and felt miserable. I’ll have to come up with some excuse for getting out of the party, I thought. Pretend I have a cold or flu or something, because at this rate I’m never going to be able to skate along with the others.

  When I got home later, I went downstairs to see what the others were doing. Dad was having a doze on the sofa in the study with his headphones on and Mum was at the other end of the sofa, working on her laptop. The French windows were open and a warm breeze wafted through from the garden.

  “Hey hon,” she said without looking up from the screen when I walked in. “How was the skating?”

  “Fine,” I lied. “Um… what you doing?”

  “I’m preparing a press release to say that the planets are here in human form and that one of them visited us here today.”

  “No! No, Mum! You mustn’t do that.”

  “Why ever not baby? This is the opportunity of a lifetime. Just think of the business it’s going to bring us.”

  My head filled with a series of horrible images. People teasing me at school for a start. It was one thing telling Rachel about being a Zodiac Girl, but if it got around school, I’d be the laughing stock. My family stood out as unusual as it was and I had wised up pretty fast to the fact that not everyone believed in the stars, and that some people even thought it was complete nonsense and that only wackos believed in it. If it got out that my family thought that the planets were here in human form, people would think we really were bananas. No. It mustn’t happen. Plus the fact that Hermie and the rest of the planets must feel free to come and go at our house. The last thing they’d want was to be hounded by paparazzi.

  “Dad. Dad. Wake up,” I said and tugged on Dad’s toes until he opened his eyes. He took off his headphones and sat up.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “It’s Mum. You have to stop her. She wants to tell the press that the planets are here in human form. I… I don’t think we should tell anyone.”

  Dad shook his head. “Estella, Thebe’s right on this one. Let it go.”

  “But baby…”

  “No. We don’t want the planet people to feel uncomfortable coming here now do we? We want this to be a haven for them so we’re going to keep it quiet. In the family. The press would treat them like freaks. It’s a no-no.”

  Mum stuck out her bottom lip like a five year old.

  “Come on now, you know we’re right,” said Dad.

  Mum folded her arms over her stomach and pouted even more. She didn’t like not getting her own way.

  “I don’t often put my foot down Estella, but I’m going to about this. We are hosts for the honoured guests and that’s it. Just having them here will be wonderful and think what we can learn. It can help business that way and maybe even give us more ideas for merchandising but no press and that’s final.”

  I glanced over at Mum to see how she was going to react. She’d gone all coy and girly and was looking up at Dad from under her eyelashes. “Oh Benjie,” she said. “I do love it when you’re forceful.”

  Oh for God’s sake, I thought. I hope they don’t start kissing in front of me. That would be so disgusting.

  “You hear me Estella, I mean it,” said Dad, clearly relishing the effect he was having on Mum.

  “Oh I hear you Mr Battye, you big lug you,” she said then she clapped her hands. “We’ll have lots of tea parties for them. Dinner parties. Thebe love, invite them all over as soon as you can. We can get Nikkya to cater so that they can sample authentic Caribbean food. What do you think? Thebe, be sure to find out if any of them are vegetarian or have any special dietary needs apart from that honey thing.” (Aunt Nikkya has her own restaurant that serves delicious Caribbean food, the kind Mum used to make before she became Business Woman of the Year. We ordered supper from Auntie at least once a week usually.)

  Dad and I looked at each other and smiled. Mum was off again but at least it was in a safe direction this time.

  “But Mum, I don’t know how it works exactly. I don’t even know if I’ll get to meet all ten planets. Hermie said most Zodiac Girls got to meet the ones who are prevalent in their charts.”

  “So look at your chart, child. What are you waiting for?”

  “I am waiting for Hermie, my guardian, to contact me to tell me what’s next. He said something about Uranus but that was all…, but you’re right, we should be able to work out some of what’s coming up for me by ourselves.”

  Dad got my chart down from where he’d blu-tacked it on the wall near his desk and the three of us bent over it.

  “Hmm, looks like some conflict coming up, munchkin,” said Dad. “Uranus, yes we know about that – a surprise on its way – although that could have been the fact that you got to be Zodiac Girl, that’s a surprise. What else? Hmm, the Moon, yes, emotions stirred up, but then the Moon always does that.”

  “Yes but nothing major?” I asked.

  “Talking about conflict,” said Mum, as she suddenly lost interest in my c
hart and picked up another one that was lying in Dad’s in tray. “You seen this?”

  Dad looked over. “Your sister’s chart.”

  Mum nodded. “Now that’s what I call conflict. Mars, Venus and the Moon well squared up against each other. I think she’s finally going to split with Norrece.”

  Dad nodded. “I saw his chart too. It does indicate a rift of sorts.”

  “Understatement,” said Mum.

  “Er, Earth to Mum and Dad. Zodiac Girl here,” I said. “I thought we were looking at my chart.”

  Mum waved the air as if dismissing me. “No hon, you got it right. Hermie will be in touch. How about you go and check the kitchen supplies while your father and I discuss my sister? If we’re going to be entertaining, we need to have plenty of food and drink in.”

  I sighed. For a brief second there, I thought I was actually going to be the centre of attention. But no. It was a shame that Aunt Mattie and Uncle Norrece might break up though. I was sad to hear that. I liked them both but it was true, they did argue a lot. They were both Leos. Leo is the sign of the lion and anyone born in that month likes to be king of the jungle which is hard if there are two of you both battling for the place. Leos can also roar like lions and boy it was noisy when those two were over and not getting on. However, like all Leos, they also had big hearts and were very generous and that made up for all the growling. They had a daughter, Yasmin, and as much as Uncle Norrece and Auntie Mattie could be charm personified, Yasmin was misery on a stick. She was fifteen and bossy and sullen unless you were a boy, in which case she suddenly became Little Miss Sunshine. She was a Gemini and they can be very flirty. She called me Miss Prissy Knickers just because she came across me colour-coding my wardrobe one rainy afternoon when they were visiting. When I tried to explain that it was so that I could find things easily, she said, “Oh get a life, loser.” I hate her. With a bit of luck, if Auntie Mattie and Norrece do split up, Yasmin will get sent somewhere far away and I’ll never have to see her ever again. Somewhere like Australia. Or the Moon.